Cancer 194

It isn’t looking good. It is getting worse by the week. The bastards are growing inside me.

This is the last day of our holiday. I am writing from a Swedish cafe in Grasmere. I have a blood test on Thursday, usual consultant on Friday and radiotherapy consultant on Monday. Perhaps a combination of drugs and radiation will knock the bastards back a bit, but I am not optimistic. They have grown significantly.

There are times when I wish fairy stories could be true. Wouldn’t it be good if the religious fairy stories about the continuation of life in an after life were true? If we could just say ‘See you in a bit’ to our friends and families when we die, knowing they will join us when they pop their clogs? Religion is a great invention. Not only does it help people deal with fear of death, it also serves to keep the masses under control.

It is a shame it is a load of bollocks. Not once through this damned illness have I wondered, ‘What if it is true?’ That is like thinking that Snow White really exists and Hansel and Gretel really had some trouble with a witch in the forest. No one believes these fairy stories so why do they believe the religious fairy stories, which are just as incredible, with the parting of the Red Sea or the raising of the dead?

It is simple. If you are told something is true when you are very young, and consistently told the same thing throughout childhood, and you are told these stories by people you trust, parents and teachers, then it becomes harder to question it.

Add to that the genuine fear of death people have because they can’t accept that life is a short flit through the world with no existence before or after then faith becomes understandable.

The problem is that much of the time we just don’t question things. Some people don’t appear to question anything.

The closer I get to death, nothing changes. It would be absurd in a Sartrean fashion to change now. It would undermine everything I believe.

That doesn’t mean I am not a) terrified of the dying process, pain etc, and b) upset that I will be missing out on perhaps a couple of decades of active life. I am both terrified and upset, just not about non-existence.

Anyway, who wants to play a harp on a cloud with a crossdressing angel, or have to deal with 72 virgins with all their issues about sexuality – and what happens when they stop being virgins? Do you get another set?

If I am repeating myself then tough. It is what is going through my head at the moment. This isn’t a well-structured book, it is a badly structured blog….